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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29089020">Nothing Grows Here</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marvels/pseuds/Marvels'>Marvels</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Critical Role (Web Series)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Blood, Canon Timeline, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Post 123, Spoilers for 123, no betas we die like purple tieflings, post-episode</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 11:54:35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,797</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29089020</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marvels/pseuds/Marvels</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After barely escaping the Tomb Takers with their lives, the Mighty Nein escape to the Vurmas Outpost to seek refuge with Essek. They need safety, and they will need to find answers. But for now, all Yasha needs is to get that blood off of Beauregard's face.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Beauregard Lionett/Yasha</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>250</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Nothing Grows Here</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Yasha dropped Caleb once they were out of sight of the Tomb Takers. She shivered, watching Lucien’s red, glowing eyes recede into the black sky and white snow of the tundra behind them. Even with the Tomb Takers’ weapons alight with cursed blood magic, it was the eyes that faded last, the same eyes that were buried beneath Caleb’s coat and Beau’s gloves. </p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Beau. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Yasha thought she’d known the horrors of Eiselcross and what it could do to a person. She’d watched a monstrosity with the face of an infant, a host of grabbing arms, and a magical, angler-fish-like light grapple and swallow Beau into its toothy, acidic maw. Beau’s quick thinking in the ruins had quite easily spared her life, but that didn’t negate the acid burns that had covered her arms and eaten through her vestments.</p><p> </p><p>Not more than a hour later, she’d watched the golem impale Beau through the shoulder and then through the gut, and Yasha remembered thinking instinctively that she’d been right in thinking she was cursed, because Beau had always been a melee fighter, but she hadn’t been fucked up quite this bad in a long time. Not since… well, not since the Chantry of the Dawn. Not since Rumblecusp. In the afterglow of Beau’s stumbling, blushing request of a date, watching her gasping, skewered on the lance of a golem felt like a specific, targeted kind of punishment, for Beau’s audacity, for Yasha’s hope.</p><p> </p><p>But that was before the Tomb Takers, and before Gelidon, Lucien, and the Somnovum had each set their sights on Beauregard Lionett. </p><p> </p><p>Yasha glanced over to where a polymorphed Beauregard trudged forward, Fjord, Veth, and Caduceus all rode, slouched but still upright, on her back. Branded on the front of the mammoth’s front left leg, was an unblinking, red eye, but otherwise, Beau’s beast form seemed most uninjured.</p><p> </p><p>“It will fade in an hour on its own,” Caleb said quietly from where he walked, hunched over, but bright-eyed at Yasha’s side. “Or she or I can drop it at will.”</p><p> </p><p>At this, Jester swooped down above them, threshold crest still grasped in the talons of her giant owl form, twisting her hypermobile neck in a curious, questioning way. </p><p> </p><p>“You can drop if you want, Jester, I think they’ve given us the night,” Caleb said, speaking up a little louder. With this sudden word of assent, owl Jester gently placed the threshold crest bag onto the ground, landed, and dropped her owl form. Her face was pinched with an uncharacteristic worry as she wetted her chapped lips.</p><p> </p><p>“Is everybody okay?” She asked. Her reedy voice was barely audible over the howl of the wind, but Fjord nodded sideways to Veth and, patting Beau’s mammoth side, slid off of her back, helping Veth down with him. The drop was hardly more than a hop for Caduceus, but he kept a hand on Beau’s side, and Yasha got the sense that it was not for his own benefit.</p><p> </p><p>“Beauregard, I will drop your mammoth form now, ja?” Caleb asked. Yasha felt herself drift towards Beau, almost as an unconscious magnetism, and was glad she did when Beau, returned to human form, swayed drunkenly, and Yasha caught her fast around the waist.</p><p> </p><p>It had only been ten or fifteen minutes since they’d made their getaway from the Tomb Takers, but Yasha felt her jaw clench again as Beau looked up at her in thanks, and all Yasha could see was the blood. It was congealed and frozen around the lower rims of her eyes, staining the jade earring in her left ear, and suspended, thick and heavy in the space beneath her nose and at the corners of her mouth and on the sharp point of her chin. </p><p> </p><p>“Nice catch,” Beau said. Her face was twisted into a false air of bravado, but the dry hoarseness of her voice and the bloody ruin of her face rendered the expression especially hollow and unnerving.</p><p> </p><p>“Beau!” Jester’s voice was shrill and panicked in the thin air. Oh, yeah. She and Fjord hadn’t been so close. They may not have seen the way Lucien held her up like a doll made of straw, fingers crushing her windpipe and infernal speech drawing choked screams and dark, hot, blood from Beauregard in equal measures. At least Caduceus had taken the time since their escape to wipe away most of the blood that Lucien had called forth from him. Beau hadn’t had the time.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m okay, Jes,” Beau said, her voice just a tick clearer. But Yasha felt Beau tense underneath her grasp, and heard the escape of the tiniest pained breath as Jester threw her arms around the monk.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I don’t have any more heal spells, Beau,” Jester rambled. “I have potions though, take another potion.”</p><p> </p><p>Yasha could sense Beau’s deep discomfort, and knew it for what it was. She didn’t want to use up any more of their resources, not when they were being hunted across the tundra, and still a full night’s trek away from the Vurmas Outpost.</p><p> </p><p>“We have plenty, Beau.” It was Fjord who spoke up this time. His dark expression told Yasha that he knew as well. He’d gone without a potion or a heal enough times in the past too.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll be fine-” Beau’s standard protest drew various groans and growls of frustrations from the party, and it surprised Yasha to hear Veth speak up, not with derision or frustration, but with the same cutting sense that led Beau to her refusal.</p><p> </p><p>“We need to keep moving, and quickly. We need you to be able to keep up. I’m not pitying you, I’m trying to keep you from being a liability,” Veth said. Her voice was uncharacteristically confident, not cracking or stuttering in her standard way of speech. She extended a regular healing potion out to Beau, her expression reserved.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, no, fine. I’ve got my own,” Beau said in a low rumble, digging through her pack and pulling out the glowing red potion. </p><p> </p><p>Yasha caught Veth’s eye as she stowed her own healing potion, and she knew that Veth could read the unspoken gratitude on her face. Veth gave her a curt nod in response as they watched Beau down a potion and find a little more stability in her stance. </p><p> </p><p>“I can get us to the Vurmas Outpost from here,” Fjord said quietly, looking up at the sky, to the dark patches of clear sky and stars amongst the clouds, and then back to his party. “Dagen had been teaching me about the star maps up here. But it’s going to take more hours yet. We won’t stop unless we have to, but we know that Essek will be able to receive us, help us, maybe.”</p><p> </p><p>“He will help us,” Caleb said, a shake in his voice belying the certainty of his words. Fjord acknowledged this with a nod. </p><p> </p><p>“Then let’s head out.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>The frozen waste of Eiselcross, though harsh during the day, was brutal at night. Their group rotated, every half hour or so, who was leading as they broke trail and faced the wind. </p><p> </p><p>Normally, Yasha would have given Beau the space to lead alone, to drive against the wind until, inevitably, her injuries would bring her stumbling to her knees. But at the unflinching behest of Veth, Fjord, and Jester, Beau remained on Yasha’s arm. </p><p> </p><p>But then again, normally Beau would have had the energy to complain. </p><p> </p><p>“D’you mind walking on my other side?” Beau asked, early in the trek. Yasha had obliged and moved to Beau’s right side. It was only after miles of frozen trekking that Yasha connected the request with the new, immovable red eye on the back of Beau’s left hand. Yasha felt her heart clench, pulling all of the muscles taut in her core, and she squeezed Beau’s hand tighter. </p><p> </p><p>Beau, to her credit, hardly slipped and fell any more than the rest of the Nein as the frozen night wore on. Yasha was always there, at her elbow, trying to catch her without jerking her against the strain of gravity too hard, mindful of the blows landed by Gelidon, and then later by Zoran. But Beau was either too cold, too guarded, or too tired to complain. </p><p> </p><p>The tall pine and iron gates of the Vurmas Outpost greeted the Mighty Nein just as dawn was lightening the sky. In the pale light, the frost-nipped noses and cheeks of the group were tellingly iced-over and numb. Standing in their position at the back of the group, the blood frozen onto Beau’s face was blackened and cracked, and, paired with the faraway look in her eyes, she looked closer to the grave than the land of the living. Yasha pulled her close into her side, supporting her more fully, fear tightening her throat.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m okay, Yash,” Beau said quietly, catching her eye with a level gaze.</p><p> </p><p>“Of course, Beau,” Yasha replied. </p><p> </p><p>Yasha was ready and caught her up in her arms when Beau’s knees buckled and she slipped into a frozen, exhausted unconsciousness.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Essek, fortunately, was awake, and well enough known at the outpost. Upon invoking his name, the Nein were brought to his lodgings, separate from the small inn and tavern of the town. It seemed to be a lodge, not fancy by any means, but nicer than the rest of the town, and certainly held more than one bedchamber, and a few good roaring fires. </p><p> </p><p>Yasha was carrying Beau tight to her chest, refusing to loosen her grip or share the load, defensive now even against their own party. They’d made it here together, but she was disinclined to let anyone else care for Beau now. The possessiveness had always been lurking beneath the surface, Yasha suspected, because none of their friends seemed surprised by it, nor did they argue for a different avenue of care. </p><p> </p><p>Essek was delighted by their arrival. He hid it beneath modest surprise and a slightly put upon demeanor, but Yasha could see his fingers twitching and fidgeting with uncharacteristic eagerness as he spoke to Caleb, begging for news, for information, for a puzzle to be solved. </p><p> </p><p>“Is there a washroom or bath in this lodging? Perhaps adjoined to a bedroom?” Yasha asked impatiently after a minute or two of conversation. She spoke with more conviction than she’d been able to summon in a long time. It was somehow easier when she wasn’t asking for anything for herself. Essek straightened, suddenly seeming to clock the half-conscious woman in Yasha’s arms, and he flushed a darker maroon color, seemingly ashamed that he hadn’t taken in the party in its entirety.</p><p> </p><p>“I- yes. Yes, Amelie will show you to one of the chambers with an adjoining washroom. I think-”</p><p> </p><p>“That will be fine, Ser Theyless, thank you,” Yasha said curtly. She saw Caleb’s eyebrows shoot up, even with his cold-stiffened face, but Veth and Jester both looked delighted. Yasha couldn’t really bring herself to enjoy their secondhand amusement, not while Beau was unwell. Not while Beau couldn’t be proud of her too.</p><p> </p><p>A blonde dwarven woman with a cleanly plaited beard, Amelie, Yasha intuited, motioned for her to follow, and with a parting nod of the head to the rest of their party, that is just what Yasha did. They ducked down a hallway that was a little cramped in height for Yasha, and she had to turn sideways to keep Beau’s boots from knocking against the walls and doors that they passed by. Finally, they were led into a small room, windowless with thick log cabin walls and a fireplace, along with a single bed, with layers of heavy blankets spread atop. A door at the far end of the room opened into what must have been a washroom.</p><p> </p><p>“The representative of Den Theyless had the rooms prepared for your arrival, so the bath has been enchanted to maintain warmth, and the bed and fire have been made up,” Amelie said quietly. “We will send food for you shortly.”</p><p> </p><p>“Thank you,” Yasha said, her voice hushed in response, eyes flitting up to the room, and then back down to Beau’s face, uneasy and contorted in semi-consciousness. Amelie recognized the dismissal, and quickly closed the door behind her as she backed out, leaving Yasha exactly where she wanted to be, exactly where she was terrified to be.</p><p> </p><p>She made her way the two steps to the bed and laid Beau down, carefully, gently. The blackened, congealed streaks of gore across her face were glistening now, as if the warmth of the room had allowed them to melt back into the life-force that they once were. Yasha slid off her own gloves with more delicacy than she’d allowed herself in a long while, as if this whole ordeal had made everything in her world, a little more fragile. Maybe it had all been this fragile. All of them. </p><p> </p><p>She placed one hand on either side of Beau’s face and took the last burning mote of energy within her to cast her <em> healing hands </em>. Yasha knew it wouldn’t wipe the blood off of Beau’s face, but a sense of deep relief flooded her system as Beau’s eyes cracked back open. </p><p> </p><p>“Yash… ‘m sorry for… that,” Beau said. Couldn’t be awake for more than a moment before talking, even through chattering teeth, apologizing.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s okay,” Yasha said, keeping her voice low and trying to match the warmth of the room. Beau’s eyes crinkled a little, pulling into a soft smile before the smile dropped almost instantly and she made to move. Yasha sighed, but reached out gentle hands to steady Beau’s listing shoulders from where she sat up unsteadily on the bed.</p><p> </p><p>“Beauregard, please, you’re still hurt-”</p><p> </p><p>“Are there more?” </p><p> </p><p>The manic expression on her face and the way that Beau’s right hand clawed at her left told Yasha all she needed to know.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know, Beau, you’re still dressed,” Yasha said softly, even as she reached over to start removing Beau’s gloves and scarf again. “Did you have another dream?”</p><p> </p><p>This seemed to stump Beau, the gears normally whirring in her head seeming to be running slowly at a groaning pace as she tried to fight the exhaustion. It stalled her long enough for Yasha to peel off Beau’s outer layers, noting the wince as Beau stretched out her arms to remove her coat. She had stripped Beau down to her thermal layered shirt and pants, and was cautiously beginning to unwrap her hand wraps when Beau gave a single, reflexive shiver and seemed to return to the moment, to her hand in Yasha’s.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t think I dreamed, Yash,” she said with a slow finality.</p><p> </p><p>“That is good then, yes?” Yasha said, continuing her work on Beau’s right hand. “I do not think there will be another eye if you did not dream.”</p><p> </p><p>“I… I think that’s right,” Beau said, scrunching her eyes closed as if to fight off some memory, some pain. Flakes of dried and drying blood fluttered from the streaks on her face at the contortion, and ever so slowly, her awareness seemed to be returning as she raised her free hand up to the corner of her mouth.</p><p> </p><p>Yasha paused, the wrap removed from Beau’s right arm, but her hand still resting, cool and limp in Yasha’s grasp. What could she say?</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> What did he do? </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Is this okay? </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Do you know I love you so much that it hurts? </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Do you know I would shatter if I lost you more than I already have? </em>
</p><p> </p><p>“It really hurt, Yasha,” Beau finally said. Her voice was more lucid now, but unusually vulnerable. “What Lucien did. I don’t-” she shivered and winced again. “I thought he was going to kill me.” It hit her like a punch in the gut, and Yasha felt her gorge rise and threaten to choke out her voice.</p><p> </p><p>“I wouldn’t let that happen, Beau.” It was all she could manage. Beau met her gaze with eyes sharper, more aware, and more familiar. They were dancing around each other still. At least they were both engaged in the dance now.</p><p> </p><p>Beau worked more actively to help Yasha strip her down, stopping short of removing her own smallclothes and breastband. Yasha averted her gaze instinctively, and felt red flush her cheeks. It was only the return of Beau’s full body shivers that led her to strip down beside her, carefully, but not without haste.</p><p> </p><p>“There aren’t any new eyes,” Beau said finally.</p><p> </p><p>“Good,” Yasha replied, keeping her eyes down but feeling relief drop her shoulders a centimeter.</p><p> </p><p>Yasha,” Beau started, and it was her voice, the slightly raspy, slightly weary voice that brought Yasha’s eyes back up to Beau’s face.</p><p> </p><p>“Let…” Yasha felt a wave of fear threaten to choke the words before saying again, “let me take care of you Beau. Please, trust me. Let me help you.” She stripped down to her own smallclothes now, and reached both arms out to Beau. For a horrible moment, she thought Beau would turn her down, but Beau haltingly, shivering, stepped into her embrace, mumbling something into her chest as Yasha pulled Beau back into her arms to carry her towards the bath. </p><p> </p><p>“Hmm?” She hummed back.</p><p> </p><p>“Only you,” Beau replied, pulling cool lips off of the skin above Yasha’s breastband. “I always trust you, Yash.”</p><p> </p><p>Yasha couldn’t respond, her own breath hitching as she carefully navigated them into the small, steaming washroom, her own skin prickling with the much welcomed warmth of the room. She set Beau down to stand beside the tub before hurrying to fetch towels from below the smaller wash basin.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh,” Beau said from behind her, her voice cracking a little. Yasha looked up to find her eye’s meeting Beau’s in the mirror above the basin. Beau’s own gaze was glued to the bloody mess of her face. She must have caught sight of herself in the mirror as she seemed frozen, halfway out of her smallclothes.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s okay,” Yasha hummed, the thread of tension underneath her words belying her own worry as she hurried back to Beau, effectively blocking off her view of the mirror. “I’ll help you in, okay?” Beau’s lips were pressed into a firm line, but she bobbed her head slightly in agreement. Yasha helped ease Beau into the bath, struggling not to flinch upon seeing the mottled bruise of Zoran’s flail, pocked with burns on the underside of Beau’s ribs, and the half healed claw and bite marks across her torso. Only Beau’s extended sigh of relief was able to pull her back into the moment.</p><p> </p><p>“Are you going to join me, Yasha?” Beau asked, barely suppressed shivers shaking her voice, looking up with half-lidded eyes. Yasha paused, with both thumbs hooked into her breastband.</p><p> </p><p>“And here I thought you wanted to take me on a date first,” she deadpanned. </p><p> </p><p>Beau’s face broke into a lazy smile, and Yasha felt a warmth return to her chest that had nothing to do with the steam in the room. She slipped unceremoniously out of her underclothes before sliding into the bath in the space in front of Beau.</p><p> </p><p>“It was all a ploy to get you naked, I thought I was very upf-front about that,” Beau countered, a single shiver cutting through her bluster, but not dimming her smile. Yasha took a clean white cloth and wetted it before setting to clean the blood from Beau’s face.</p><p> </p><p>“There are much less time-consuming ways to get me naked, Beauregard,” she said absently.</p><p> </p><p>“I like the challenge,” Beau replied, closing her eyes only so Yasha could work the cloth into the skin under her eyes. Yasha noted, absently, how much younger she looked when her eyes were closed, how much more fragile. </p><p> </p><p>“After today, I would like it to be noted that I do not like your methods, if it means you have to be covered in blood first.” Yasha tried to keep her tone light, but she knew some of her anger, some of her fear must have slipped into her tone from the way Beau’s smile faded, just enough for her to notice. </p><p> </p><p>Yasha continued to sponge at Beau’s face, the cloth turning a deep crimson as the blood came unstuck, and let the silence hang for a moment more.</p><p> </p><p>“I couldn’t let them get Caleb or Caduceus, Yash. They were helpless down there,” Beau said finally. A familiar defensiveness had crept into her tone, and Yasha sighed. She couldn’t deny that she’d felt the same way.</p><p> </p><p>“I know that,” she admitted. “That doesn’t mean you have to launch yourself at Lucien, or make the sacrifice play.”</p><p> </p><p>“There were a lot of those sacrifices going around tonight, I wasn’t the only one taking desperate measures to save them,” Beau countered sharply. Yasha let the hand holding the cloth fall into the water with a frustrated splash.</p><p> </p><p>“But I love <em> you </em>, Beauregard,” she snapped. Beau froze for half a moment, wide eyes locked on Yasha, her face tinged pink from the scrubbing and the heat, lips slightly parted. Yasha felt the pulse of her heart, suddenly kicking into double time, sonorous in her ears.</p><p> </p><p>She didn’t wait this time, before cupping Beau’s face in both hands and pulling her in to kiss.</p><p> </p><p>Beau’s lips were still cool and chapped, but her mouth was warm and wanting and she kissed back with a desperation that matched Yasha’s. Beau brought one hand up to hold the side of Yasha’s neck, just below the ear. The feeling of those fingers, so warm now, and so tender despite their aptitude for destruction, brought a chill up the nape of Yasha’s neck.</p><p> </p><p>Yasha pulled away after a few moments, and forced herself to look back into Beau’s eyes. Momentarily blank, Beau’s face drew into an unbridled grin, despite her lower lip trembling a little against her teeth, and her eyes shining a little too bright. <em> So fragile </em> , Yasha thought. <em> What tenderness it takes for her to bloom. </em></p><p> </p><p>“That was…”</p><p> </p><p>“Hush, Beauregard,” Yasha said, dipping one hand back into the warm water, then bringing it back up to Beau’s face, letting her thumb sweep across Beau’s cheekbone. She leaned forward and planted another kiss on Beau’s forehead, then let her hand slide down to settle on the side of Beau’s neck, fingers barely touching the skin that was bruised a deeper brown and purple from Lucien’s hand.</p><p> </p><p>Beau took a deep inhale, her breath shaking audibly. It was a distinct sound, different from her shivers of cold, and Yasha felt a level of satisfaction at that, underlined by a low thrum of longing. </p><p> </p><p>“May I wash your hair?” Yasha asked, keeping her voice low.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, yeah, let me just-” Beau’s hands flew up to her hair, roughly beginning to unravel the braids around her circlet. Yasha brought her hands up slowly and deliberately to catch Beau’s wrists.</p><p> </p><p>“Let me take care of you,” she said, just as much a plea as it was a reminder. Beau seemed to freeze at the request, uncomprehending, before lowering her hands back down into the water. Gently, Yasha reached up and began unbraiding Beau’s hair, taking care not to pull or tangle it as she went. Beau didn’t make any sound in response, only reached up to hook a hand into the crook Yasha’s elbow, extended just inches in front of her face. When Yasha glanced down, Beau’s eyes were closed again.</p><p> </p><p>She finally managed to remove the circlet fully, and placed it on a stool just outside of the bath before nudging Beau’s shoulder and helping her turn around. As Yasha worked her fingers deftly through the dark brown hair, lathering in water and soap, Beau made a soft humming noise.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re very good at this,” Beau said, her voice lower, more gravelly, but oozing with relief. Yasha hummed back in response, unable to think of what else to say. It was a comfortable quiet, which Yasha found herself amused by. She wouldn’t have believed, even in recent weeks, that Beau could sit in silence and stillness, and that she herself would not feel compelled to perform some standard kind of sociability in her company. </p><p> </p><p>It was strange, in practice, to realize that not only was Yasha loved Beau, but that they could fit together, in space, in time, and in energy, without the illusion falling apart. She turned to washing Beau’s shoulders and back, taking care around her injuries, but allowing herself to enjoy the feeling of Beau’s skin and muscle, pliant under her touch.</p><p> </p><p>“If I’d known I could get this kind of treatment after a fight-”</p><p> </p><p>“Do not say that you would have done this much sooner, Beauregard,” Yasha warned, unflinching, glad that Beau couldn’t see the amused twist of her lips.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m still here and kicking, though,” Beau said, and Yasha could hear the pouting in her voice.</p><p> </p><p>“We do not have to talk about this tonight, Beau.”</p><p> </p><p>Beau twisted around in the water to look up at Yasha then, all wet hair and pink faced and hopeful. </p><p> </p><p>“So maybe we can do this again?”</p><p> </p><p>The hope in her voice made Yasha chuckle, before she kissed Beau’s head again and stood, leaving the tub and grabbing a towel.</p><p> </p><p>“We will do this again. Now come and dry off, I’m sure they have something dry for us to wear.”</p><p> </p><p>With an admirable amount of grace, given their shared exhaustion, Yasha and Beau managed their way back into the bedroom, cloaked in the roughspun but oversized towels. It only took a little digging through the small chest by the heart to find some long tunics of a similar type of fabric that would certainly serve as bedclothes. </p><p> </p><p>Yasha led Beau to the side of the bed nearest the hearth and passed her one tunic before retreating to the other side of the bed to slip into her own. As she dropped her towel, back turned to Beau, she heard a small humming sound from across the bed.</p><p> </p><p>Yasha turned to look over her shoulder, and saw Beau waiting, the tunic brushing down to her knees. She was leaning against the bedpost in a way that was posturing as demure, but Yasha could see the way that her body was sloping, leaning heavily on the post for support. She was smiling still, lazily, but her eyes were half-lidded and her mind was clearly already halfway to sleep.</p><p> </p><p>“And what are you looking at?” Yasha goaded playfully, pulling her borrowed sleep shirt down to its full length at her mid thigh.</p><p> </p><p>“I feel like now is as good a time as any to let you know that your ass is exquisite,” Beau drawled, smirking. </p><p> </p><p>“Oh! I… thank you.” Yasha felt her face flush, and she grinned a little in spite of herself. She took a little care to swing her hips as she returned to the bed, pulling back the blankets and sheets before patting the mattress. “You’re just exhausted, get into bed.” Beau grinned back before tumbling into the space that Yasha had made for her.</p><p> </p><p>“Maybe so, but that doesn’t make it less true,” she said gleefully. </p><p> </p><p>“Go to sleep, Beauregard,” Yasha said fondly, pulling the blankets up and around Beau’s chest. As she pulled back, a dark flash crossed Beau’s face, and her hand shot out and caught Yasha’s wrist with impossible speed.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re not going to leave, are you?” Beau’s voice cracked as she asked, her eyes wide and fully lucid with fear. The hand reaching out was branded with the red eye of the Somnovum, and Yasha could have sworn that it flashed for a moment, a brighter glowing red. Yasha settled back onto the mattress beside her, folding Beau’s arm back across her own chest before nudging her onto one side so Yasha could spoon her.</p><p> </p><p>“I won’t leave you, Beau,” she said quietly, feeling the monk’s legs nudge and then tangle up in her own, as if to keep her there. “I’m not going anywhere.” She pressed a chaste kiss to the still-wet hair on the back of Beau’s head before nuzzling down into the back of her neck.</p><p> </p><p>“I love you too, Yasha,” Beau said finally, quietly. “I’ll do anything if it means you’ll stay.” Yasha hushed her then, blowing warm breath onto the back of her neck, and feeling the tension slowly retreat from Beau’s shoulders</p><p> </p><p>“Just sleep, Beauregard.”</p><p> </p><p>She felt Beau nod, and within moments, go limp again, exhaustion pulling her under into sleep. Yasha took a deep breath, of fear or relief or something else entirely, before following her down.</p><p> </p><p>The food must have shown up, at some point. They didn’t wake up to receive it. Along with so many other things, it would have to wait.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>So I haven't written fanfiction in years, but Beau/Yasha really brought out the yearning in me, especially in this episode this past week.</p><p>Game functioning notes: I chose to leave the casters tapped for spells due to how burned out they were by the end of 123. I also rendered Beau unconscious due to the cold damage sustained after crossing the tundra overnight.</p><p>Comments, as always, are incredibly helpful when it comes to honing my writing, so please let me know what you think! I'm @caitrun on tumblr (and at least semi-active over there), and would love to write more Beauyasha, so please feel free to drop some prompts or requests, either on there or here in the comments! </p><p>Thanks for reading!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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